Sneaky Snake: Tap Snake taps your GPS for Data!!!

Be aware of “Tap Snake” and app from the Android Market that seems like a harmless version of the classic snake game, but it is not what it seems. F-Secure said recently, “the ancient “Snake” game serves as a front end to a commercial GPS spyware program, called GPS Spy.” Turns out the developer of the app is Maxicom. The free app houses two hidden features. First, the game won’t exit. Once installed, it runs in the background forever, and restarts automatically when you boot the phone. Secondly, every 15 minutes the game secretly reports the GPS location of the phone to a server. F-Secure also said, “they suspect that Google will either remove the app itself from the Android Market, or else Google will exercise its kill-switch ability and remotely delete the app from user phones. Their prediction seems to be true since there is no longer any trace of tap snake left in the Android Market.